Monday, December 23, 2019

TorrentFreak's Latest News

 

Indonesian Government Continues Whac-A-Mole Against Local Streaming Piracy Giant
Ernesto, 23 Dec 09:31 PM

With millions of views per day, 'IndoXX1' is of one the largest pirate sites on the Internet.

In the West, the site doesn't ring a bell with most people. In Indonesia, however, it is among the top 25 most visited websites in the country, only beaten by Google, YouTube, and a few others.

The site's popularity didn't go unnoticed by Hollywood. Earlier this year the MPA listed the site in its yearly overview of notorious pirate sites submitted to the US Trade Representative.

"Indo 21" has emerged as the main brand for piracy in Bahasa throughout Indonesia and Malaysia. One of the related sites, indoxx1.center, has a local ranking of 40 in Indonesia according to SimilarWeb data with 23.85 million monthly visits in August 2019," MPA wrote.

Today this information is already outdated. While IndoXX1 remains the most visited pirate brand in the country, it continuously relocates in order to evade local blocking efforts.

Most recently the portal was available through domains including idxx1.cam, indoxx1.art, and indoxx1.kim. However, a few days ago, Indonesia's Information and Communications Ministry (Kominfo) stepped in to block these domains.

Kominfo's actions coincide with the release of a new survey, commissioned by the Asia Video Industry Association's Coalition Against Piracy (CAP), which shows that streaming piracy is rampant in Indonesia.

According to the study, 63% of Indonesians have accessed streaming piracy websites or torrent sites. In addition, 29% of consumers use set-top boxes that can stream pirated video content, with indoXXI(Lite) being the most popular app by far.

This isn't the first time Kominfo has taken action against IndoXX1. Other domains have been banned previously as part of a national anti-piracy effort. In fact, the Government organization has blocked more than 1,000 domain names since July.

Revealing the gravity of the situation, Kompas reports that these anti-piracy efforts can also count on the support of the national police.

While it's clear that the authorities are taking the piracy problem seriously, it seems rather hard to curtail. On social media, many people are pointing out alternatives and, when we checked, indoXXI mirrors or copies were indeed available.

Many of the site's users don't really seem impressed by yet another blockade, and a meme illustrating the ineffectiveness of the measures has been viewed over a dozen million times in a few days.

Since blocking isn't 100% effective, to say the least, it may also be worth looking at other means to address the piracy problem. At the supply end, for example. That's where help from the Government may also be welcome.

Local news site Coconuts reports that Indonesia's largest Internet provider Telkomsel currently blocks its subscribers from accessing Netflix. The state-owned ISP officially bans Netflix on censorship grounds, but some believe there may be financial reasons as well, as the company has ties to a local streaming service.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 12/23/19
Ernesto, 23 Dec 04:55 PM

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Joker is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week's most downloaded movies are:
Movie Rank Rank last week Movie name IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1 (10) Joker 8.8 / trailer
2 (2) Ad Astra 6.9 / trailer
3 (…) JoJo Rabbit 8.1 / trailer
4 (1) 6 Underground 6.2 / trailer
5 (…) Zombieland Double Tap 7.1 / trailer
6 (3) Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood 7.9 / trailer
7 (…) The Lighthouse 8.2 / trailer
8 (5) Rambo: Last Blood 6.6 / trailer
9 (…) The Aeronauts 6.6 / trailer
10 (7) Gemini Man 5.7 / trailer

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Russia Convicts a Pirate Site Operator for the Very First Time
Andy, 23 Dec 10:57 AM

Despite having one of the most aggressive site-blocking mechanisms anywhere in the world supported by a unique voluntary search engine de-indexing program, prosecutions of pirate site operators rarely come to fruition in Russia.

That has now changed with the conviction of Stanislav Saigin, a man who operated three main sites that formerly operated from Kinogb.guru, kinokot.biz, and fosa.me. These platforms, supported by a dozen mirror sites, offered around 10,000 movies and TV shows to the public for free.

These streaming sites were among thousands that previously relied upon the now-defunct Moonwalk 'pirate' CDN system. This massive cloud-based operation, which was taken down in October following legal action by BREIN, the MPA, and the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment, fed the site not only with video content but advertising too, much of it placed by online casinos.

Cybersecurity company Group-IB, which conducted the investigation into the Kinogb, says it repeatedly warned the operator of the sites against copyright infringement and asked for unlicensed distribution to be stopped. However, these overtures were ignored and instead, new mirror sites appeared when the other domains names were blocked by ISPs. As a result, Group-IB became involved in tracking down their operator.

"The owner of the kinogb network turned out to be a highly secretive and cautious individual: they did not have genuine social media accounts and were not registered on any forums. Nevertheless, Group-IB's investigation department quickly picked up their trail," Group-IB says in a statement sent to TorrentFreak.

"During the investigative activities carried out by the law enforcement agencies in the spring of 2019, the owner of the pirate network was detained. The suspected perpetrator was accused of violating copyright and related rights, which could be punishable by imprisonment for up to six years, with or without a fine of up to $8,000 or equaling the amount of the convicted individual's wage, salary, any other income over a period of up to three years."

Initially, the site operator allegedly confessed and agreed to cooperate with the authorities and as a result, a criminal case was sent to the Krasnogorsk City Court. However, the defendant then refused to plead guilty so as a result, he was handed a two-year suspended sentence and three years' probation.

"This case has set an important precedent that could help bring other owners of pirate resources to criminal responsibility," says Andrey Busargin, Director of Brand Protection and Anti-Piracy at Singapore-based Group-IB.

"Pirates are part of organized criminal groups: some groups record videos in movie theaters, while others translate and dub films. Others still adapt and publish content online. Only criminal prosecution combined with tighter anti-piracy legislation can reduce the number of people engaging in this type of illegal business."

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

 
 
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